Tuesday, July 15, 2014

Does a lack of affiliation mean I cannot publish ?

I am not affiliated with Texas A&M University any more. It shouldn't matter, except it does. My profile can not appear on Google Scholar search since I don't have a verified e-mail, i.e an email address ending with '.edu'.

You're welcome! And yes, of course you should link back to the blog in your Scholar profile. We've been aggressive about asking people to provide a full academic citation to the CVX web site and software in their published papers, and as you can see it has worked.

I've had a related experience. I work for a company, but would rather not use that affiliation (it is not clear that I even can per the company's legal department) since the work I'd like to publish is totally unrelated to my job at that company. However, without that affiliation, I can't publish! So I'm left with a blog ...

This is nonsense. You should be allowed to publish without affiliation or even with pseudonyms. What did you put as your affiliation when you submitted the paper? (Or perhaps you were just testing if they would let you go by without an affiliation?)

I was testing the water. No harm done in this instance but I am little bit annoyed that on top of having to choose the right publication next time, I will have to check on that additional, and really irrelevant, detail.

I recommend you start with a blog. Once your ideas get a little bit more refined, go to arxiv.

The notion that you need an affiliation to publish something is absurd. However, it typically takes years to develop your ideas, theoretical mechanisms, and understand what has been done before in your topic area.

If you think you have something to say that the scientific world will find valuable, publish it! Start with blog posts, slowly build up a github presence (if you are doing anything CS-related), then start writing drafts on arxiv. Once you have a better sense of who did what in your field, it will be clear who to cite. If you cite the right people and influenced their thinking, they will cite you back.

In fact, if you cite the right background literature, don't be surprised if the great minds find you...

Be warned that this is the long-hard-way of doing things, as it might take closer to a decade to gain idea traction and credibility. I don't know anything about your background or your field, but I'd like to reinforce the notion that science is about spreading good ideas. Anyone can play.